Transcript by DC

Begin: I want to try to make myself satisfied that I made something clear. Last week I mentioned the kind of little task of taking some blunder you'd made...of how to let it linger in the wings of your mental stage...to Neuralize it...the trick was, the usefulness of it is you do not let it get onstage; you do not let it come out and become verbal...and see what happens.

00:59 And from last night...when I started talking about the restlessness of the mind and pointing out what I've been calling primary and secondary affairs -- I'm going to change my terms...[to] essential affairs and the human world...the mind is not only restless and will not stay on an essential matter...but the mind would not stay automatically focussed on matters of a human nature, that is, on matters that were its own children...a potentially useful learning experience is to willfully...keep your attention focussed on some essential matter in which you're involved.

05:34 The problem that so-called mystics have with themselves is with their mind. And the problem they have with their mind is that it's eternally restless and they do not seem to be able to control it. And they have called it several...other things, but that's all it is...and describing these anomalistic states they call being awake...a very common description is that their mind was 'at peace'.06:24 One of the older classic stories..."Show me your mind....and I will take care of it...." "...I can't really locate it." "Done."

07:09 A useable description...The object of all of this is to have a peaceful mind, but I can beat that -- by a question: Is the aim of it actually to have a peaceful mind, or is it to learn to live with an unchangeably restless mind?

07:29 My guess would be that 99% of the world's mystics who have ever lived would opt for the former. They wouldn't even listen to the second part.

07:42 Let me suggest that here is a new model...The mind is restless...will not stay focussed on [either] essential matters [nor] those of its own invention....

09:13 By the way, my intention is tonight through my extemporaneous comments...through irrefutable, irrepressible, inescapable, cold, hard logic prove to you that which the human mind is not equipped to comprehend -- not.

09:51 ...the state of being hypnotized...is all mental....your body does not do it to you, nothing outside that part of the brain we call the mind. "And exactly how might it be described, this state of sleep? Can you describe it another way?" "Yes, I can."

10:25 The state of sleep has one cause. (Of course, this is a lie because nobody knows what the cause is -- well, yeah, I do....it's being alive.)

11:00 I could say that the state of sleep is caused by the mind agreeing or disagreeing with how things are. That's all being asleep is...and either accepting or condemning other people's feelings about how things are...

12:38 What do I call being asleep, throughout my life; how would I describe it?...when I am not in a state with which I find favor, what is my mind doing? It is either agreeing or disagreeing with how IT takes things to be...

13:31 If you were to cease...to either agree or disagree with how your mind thinks things are, then what would you be left with? You would see things as they are. And if you think it's anything beyond that, no matter what you call it, then you're dreaming -- I mean to believe that there's supernatural. To wake up is simply to go ahead and see the natural. But the idea of some supernatural --.

14:10 In agreeing or disagreeing with Life...the criticism of Life, or yourself or anything is actually just one half of it because to mentally accept something rather than criticize it, you're just as asleep.

15:44 The accepting of something in the human realm -- to accept it is to be just as asleep as to reject it.

16:27 The complaints that people have...is not about the people themselves...it's about...their ideas. That's where the criticism is. So it's easy to think that if you accept life...

16:55 The agreeing and disagreeing that is really the heart of all of this...notice this -- it's tricky, but it's obvious as hell -- the entanglement in agreeing and disagreeing is only in human affairs, not essential affairs.

19:18 Any ordinary person does not accept or reject essential matters...nobody sits around and thinks, "Do I approve of eating?"20:00 It sounds as though I only attack criticism...but also if you mentally agree with...anything in the secondary...area of life, you are as much asleep...you're being just as foolish as you are to reject them...even if the mind is going to stay restless, then you're trapped with it being restless in an area that is meaningless and to try to stop it, I'm trying to hint to you, could be doubly meaningless, or impossible.

21:22 I'm still talking about agreeing and disagreeing and then something else: that neither one will do. And then we'll try to slip in something on you. [ Major dichotomy in politics between liberal and conservative views.]

29:10 An ordinary human being would agree in his mind if he was interested in politics to one of those views...but with you people, the reason I went through all that -- either one should sound feasible.

31:11 Both of those views are rendered absolutely meaningless if there is indeed a human conspiracy...[e.g.] 90% of all the wealth is owned by 2% of the population...if we had been serfs...nobody had to hit you over the head with a frozen flounder, you knew, "Hell, it's the damn duke up there on the hill..."

34:11 What would seem to be the...refutation of the conspiracy theory is the fact...let's take America: we have free elections...(the real one is you count the votes). But I've got another one for you.

36:40 That 2%...assume there is a conspiracy, that they own both candidates...they own the parties, they own the State...then it doesn't matter if the liberals get in or the conservatives get in. It's a puppet show...It's one ventriloquist with two dummies.

41:44 So, the whole idea that you were going to agree with this view or that view -- does anybody understand? -- it's meaningless. It's not just meaningless for you to tag along after your mind...

42:37 The most religious people on the planet who believe mostly in the great human conspiracy...it's they who write about, wail about this great evil conspiracy...wait a minute. The ultimate conspiracy would be a god...[John D. Rockefeller throwing out pennies at Christmas to starving people. Simpsons' cartoon character of rich man take off on John D.] If you were on fire, you wouldn't bother to go up to his door and say, "Would you throw some water on me?"...

45:47 Does everybody know that there is a conspiracy? Forget this 2% of humans. See, that's the idea of a human conspiracy; that's all anybody conceives of...every conspiracy that humans perceive, imagine is a human conspiracy...

46:23 ...the conspiracy is this: Men believing that they have some control over their life. I can beat that. The conspiracy is in the question of whether men have any control over their life.

46:51 Do you realize that if there is a conspiracy, a human conspiracy...then any agreement or disagreement you have with any political view is useless?

49:00 If you want to see the uselessness of what we struggle against, look at what the restless mind is. Look at being asleep is, what is going on in your head. It is always a continual rejecting and accepting, an agreeing and a disagreeing with things out of the world of human affairs.

49:34 The unity of everything, that there is no out there and there is no in here, there is the unseen "conspiracy"...It's part of the mind [that] the mind believes that what you agree to, what you disagree with is of importance.

52:30 The same thing is going on...there is a conspiracy, and the conspiracy, put crudely, is...that man believes he has some control over his life...

56:28 To agree or disagree with how things are...in the widest sense...the dog of your attention chasing after [someone else's] car...and you listen...and you're either agreeing or disagreeing with...in this case, their view of how things are....that is the disease of sleep. That is the restlessness of the mind, and over matters that are an illlusion...

58:21 I ask you again. Do you think the real aim should be described, as it has been for thousands of years...that the real aim of This should be described as the attempt...to calm the mind? Or is it to learn to live with an unchangeably restless mind? And that it's a conspiracy to think that you can do the former.

58:56 What kind of activity can you use to calm the mind that itself is not disturbing? Nobody ever likes that one.

59:59 In cold, hard, irrefutable logic all this ties neatly together and now you can no longer deny it, by God.

01:00:22 Consider the conspiracy. Do you understand that it would render all activity leading up and culminating...maybe I should have made it smaller...[union elections]...there is no Satan and God...there's a conspiracy...there's one guy who owns both forces, both teams...how do you assume that there's opposing powers inside the universe?

01:02:00 The idea that there could be opposing forces, that you could be a certain way and then have a critical view of yourself, that that's possible inside the universe is not possible. It's an illusion; that's all you can call it. Or that there are powers working against each other -- not possible...we're talking about human matters.

01:02:31 To believe that there can be conflicting forces, you have to be fast asleep...so, if that's true, then how can you consider it to be other than moronic for you to entertain, for you to give any notice to your mind's agreeing or disagreeing with how things appear to be?...how they appear to be is an illusion...it's useless for you to worry about it. That's true about everything in the mind. And not to understand that is to be asleep...that's it; to believe that anything you think is of any importance.

01:03:51 And the last one for people like us..."Well, I don't worry about politics....I worry about whether I'm awake or not." There it is. You're still a victim of the conspiracy. As long as you care whether you're awake or not, you're asleep.

01:04:47 It is the final one...most of you feel as though you're not that entangled with ordinary affairs...if there's anything that I really have any like or dislike about it's that I don't like my ordinary state of consciousness. I don't like it when I go back to sleep...if you realize in some way there is nothing wrong with Life...I only have one complaint...there's only one thing that bothers me and that's being asleep. But don't you get it? That's enough. If that bothers you, then you're asleep...

01:06:51 See, the trick is, it's not that you quit caring that you're asleep...it's that you quit caring but then you don't not care.

01:07:03 What happens when you awaken -- I can put it to you another way -- is you merge with the great conspiracy...

01:07:50 It is the caring of the mind...you agree or disagree, accept or reject things in the realm of human affairs. That is the disease that we call being asleep. That's all it is, from one view.

01:09:13 The conspiracy is the unity of everything. The conspiracy is the unity of the universe.

01:10:55 [Likes/dislikes] part of the distraction that keeps ordinary men's minds occupied. It doesn't keep mystics' minds occupied. They're harder to please. I don't know what it is. They're soreheads. They're mis-wired. They can't be distracted enough by it.

01:11:24 Life, the universe owns everything that you like, you and everybody else, and everyting that you and everybody else dislike....it's a conspiracy. Life owns it all.

Jan Cox

Enlightenment is promised by many, but few dare work for it. You may have heard of zen, sufi, 4th way or The Work of Gurdjieff, but if what they promise is what you must have - then you are going to have to insist on it. Jan Cox recorded 3,300 talks, and we have archived them as well as all of his writings.

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